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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Age, body mass index, and functional illness | | Author(s) | Kenneth F Ferraro, Tara L Booth |
| Journal title | The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, vol 54B, no 6, November 1999 |
| Pages | pp S339-348 |
| Keywords | Obesity ; Malnutrition ; Ill health ; Self care capacity ; Age groups [elderly] ; Longitudinal surveys ; United States of America. |
| Annotation | The relationship between body mass index (BMI) and selected measures of functional illness, and whether the relationship between BMI and the these outcomes is stronger at advanced ages are examined. This study uses data from Americans' Changing Lives (ACL), a longitudinal study of non-institutionalised adults, from which four measures of functional illness were examined: functional impairment, functional limitation, days ill in bed, and days spent in hospital. Tobit and Poisson models were used to estimate cross-sectional and longitudinal specification. BMI was related to functional illness but not in linear form. Both obese and underweight people manifested higher levels of functional illness on most outcomes during the baseline survey. Results from the change analysis, however, revealed that obesity was associated with more days hospitalised or ill in bed and an increase in functional limitations. There is no evidence from these results that the relationship between obesity and functional illness is stronger for older people. Rather, the effect of obesity on some measures of functional illness is greater in younger and middle-aged people. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-000306229 A |
| Classmark | CSA: CSM: CH: CA: BB: 3J: 7T |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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